Giving up all for uncertain repayment,
Feeding the raven!

Striving to peer through the infinite azure,
Alternate turning to earthward and falling,
Measuring life with Damastian measure,
Finite, appalling.

What does it matter! They passed who with Homer
Poured out the wine at the feet of their idols:
Passing, what found they? To-come a misnomer,
It and their idols?

Sacristan, acolyte, player, or preacher,
Each to his office, but who holds the key?
Death, only Death--thou, the ultimate teacher
Wilt show it to me.

And when the forts and the barriers fall,
Shall we then find One the true, the almighty,
Wisely to speak with the worst of us all--
Ah, Aphrodite!

Waiting, I turn from the futile, the human,
Gone is the life of me, laughing with youth
Steals to learn all in the face of a woman,
Mendicant Truth!

Rising with a bitter laugh, and murmuring the last lines, he thrust the
papers into a drawer, locked it, and going quickly from the room, he went